Electronic health records — touted by the White House as a key way to improve healthcare in the United States — may actually do little to improve quality, U.S. researchers said on Monday.

A team from Stanford University in California analyzed nationwide survey data from more than 250,000 visits to physicians’ offices and other outpatient settings between 2005 and 2007.

They found electronic health records did little to improve quality, even when there was “decision support” software that gives doctors tips on how best to treat individual patients.

“Across a wide range of quality indicators there was no consistent association between having those electronic tools available and providing better quality of care,” said Dr. Randall Stafford of Stanford, whose study appears in the Archives of Internal Medicine.

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